Shining as she reeled him in

I booked my trip to Austin. I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard so many good things about it. I am keeping an open mind. I may move there, I may not. I won’t know until I visit. I arrive on Halloween.

One of my loyal readers who also knows me in the real world pointed out a story I had forgotten. It’s related to yesterday’s story about my stepmother Corinne.

The history is this: My mother met Corinne back in 1970. They were neighbors. Corinne’s kids were my best friends growing up and now they are my stepsisters. My father ended up marrying Corinne and my mother never forgave her, even though she didn’t want him. She didn’t care about my father, but she felt betrayed by Corinne for dating my father and then not telling her that she was dating him.

My mother was dropping off one day at my father’s house which is the house where she used to live. when she got to the driveway, she noticed Corinne’s car parked there. She dropped me off and then proceeded to drive all over my father’s lawn. I’ll never forget the look on Corinne’s face when she heard the screeching of the car and saw my mother driving all over the lawn. My mother is not someone you want to cross and Corinne has always been afraid of my mother.

Corinne’s youngest daughter, Caroline, was born two years after me and five years after Corinne and my father first met, back when my parents were still married to each other. Caroline bears a striking resemblance to me. If I were casting a part for my sister (I have no known siblings), I would definitely cast Caroline because she really does look like me. She also completely shares my father’s politics. They would often talk about issues and agree with each other on everything, meanwhile my stepmother and I would egg them on by talking about how much we like guns and how poor people should be forcibly sterilized. It’s always easy to bait my father because he takes things so seriously.

For a long time I have wondered if my stepsister is actually my half sister. One Sunday after family dinner, I stole a fork that Caroline had used and put it in a plastic baggie so that I could have her DNA tested and compared to my own.

I called a bunch of places that do DNA testing, but every place was either too expensive or told me they couldn’t do a DNA test without the person’s consent. I still have the fork with the DNA on it, so if any of you readers out there know how to do a DNA test, let me know and I will send you the fork and some of my DNA so you can test it to see if Caroline and I are biologically related. I’d really like to know.

Today’s song is the first Joni Mitchell song I have posted on this blog. It’s from 1975 and it’s called “Harry’s House/Centerpiece” from her “The Hissing of Summer Lawns” album. The reason I chose this song to go with this entry is because it’s about what the suburbs does to people and the petty things people do to each other when they are in a relationship. The song is full of incredible imagery, like:

“A helicopter lands on the Pan Am roof
Like a dragonfly on a tomb
And business men in button downs
Press into conference rooms
Battalions of paper minded males
Talking commodities and sales
While at home their paper wives
And paper kids
Paper the walls to keep their gut reactions hid.”

Joni Mitchell- Harry's House/Centerpiece
http://www.zshare.net/audio/40787494ba060c

The song reminds me of the relationship between my father and my stepmother.

“Yellow checkers for the kitchen
Climbing ivy for the bath
She is lost in House and Gardens
He's caught up in Chief of Staff
He drifts off into the memory
Of the way she looked in school
With her body oiled and shining
At the public swimming pool ...”